How to renegotiate pay when given extra work
Employers often try to force you to do a second job on top of your own without a pay increase, leading to severe overwhelm during busy seasons. This leaves you stuck trying to figure out if you can simply decline the new duties, or if you need to approach the person in charge with a proposal for an entirely separate contract.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1doing manual weekly backupsDid this help you?
- 2doing some basic maintenanceDid this help you?
- 3working part time jobs after school to make ends meet, mostly after-school tutoring with kids in the areaDid this help you?
- 4Asking management which current tasks should be removed to free up bandwidthDid this help you?
- 5Documenting tasks and hours worked to prove full capacityDid this help you?
- 6Refusing additional tasks and risking termination for insubordinationDid this help you?
- 7Conditioning extra help on a formal title and pay bump in writingDid this help you?
- 8Applying for new jobs elsewhereDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Now they are drowning during the busy season and are trying to force me to do that job on top of my own for no pay increase. I assume they can do this, but how do I decline? Can I decline?”source ↗
“So I feel a little overwhelmed and more importantly, I realize that I need to renegotiate my contract because I'm doing way too much this year.”source ↗
“I want to go to the CFO who is in charge, and make a proposal for a separate "school sysadmin" contract alongside my teacher contract.”source ↗